No. cliv. FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE. Mr. Palgrave owes his reputation to his high critical faculty. His chief characteristic is refinement of taste, whether manifested in literature or in art. His Golden Treasury of English Songs and his Children's Treasury of Lyrical Poetry are delightful compilations, as are his Herrick and Shakespeare's Songs and Sonnets. Quite recently he was elected to the Chair of Poetry at Oxford, vacant by the death of the late Principal Shairp. Some thirty years ago Mr. Palgrave published his Idylls and Songs, and in 1871 his Lyrical Poems. No. cliv., however, is a hitherto unpublished sonnet: it was, as some will at once infer, written on the occasion of the tragic death of the author's late friend, Lord Cavendish. No. clv. SIR NOEL PATON, R.S. A., etc. It is many years since this celebrated artist published his second little volume of verse. Several of his sonnets are characterised by distinct grace of expression and poetic feeling, but the exceedingly fine one which I give seems to me the strongest. It was first printed in Mr. Hall Caine's Anthology, and is of much later date than any included in Sir Noel's two published volumes. Nos. clvi.-clviii. JOHN PAYNE. Mr. Payne has published Intag lios, Lautrec, New Poems, etc., and ranks high among the younger men. His sonnets have been much admired by many good judges. Nos. clix.-clxii. EMILY PFEIFFER. Mrs. Pfeiffer is among the most prolific of living poetesses. The fine sonnets I quote speak for themselves. Nos. clxiii.-clxiv. BRYAN WALLER PROCTOR (1790-1874). Barry Cornwall is known chiefly as a song-writer, but he wrote some good sonnets. Nos. clxv.-clxvii. MARK ANDRÉ RAFFALOVITCH. Mr. Raffalovitch's sonnets are among the best of those that markedly derive from Shakespeare's. He has allowed himself to be even more strongly influenced by the latter than did Julian Fane: he has not, however, the intellectual strength or reserve power of Mr. Wilfred Blunt. He has published two highly interesting but unequal volumes of verse, the sonnets I have U selected coming from the first, Cyril and Lionel: and other Poems No. clxviii, ERNEST RHYS. Mr. Rhys is probably the latest recruit to the great army of literature. He has shown distinct literary judgment and capacity in his edition in the Canterbury Poets, of Herbert, and in one or two magazine articles. He has not as yet published any volume of verse. Mr. Rhys is editor of the forthcoming valuable series of prose works, The Camelot Classics, of which the first volume is to appear in March of this year. No. clxix. ERIC SUTHERLAND ROBERTSON. Mr. Eric Robertson is another of those who have not published their poems in book-form. Several of his sonnets have appeared in magazines, and a fine one called 'A Vision of Pain' in Mr. Caine's Sonnets of Three Centuries, His poetic work is invariably characterised by originality of conception and fitting expression, and his sonnets answer to that searching test, adequacy of sonnet motive. Mr. Robertson's practical interest in educational questions, in addition to arduous though miscellaneous literary labours, have hitherto stood in the way of his taking the place among the younger writers to which his high capabilities entitle him. A year or two ago he published an interesting and useful little volume entitled English Poetesses. The following sonnet exemplifies the rapidity with which this complicated form can sometimes be written. Composed in St. Paul's Cathedral during or immediately after the special service noted below, it was hastily written down, was offered a few minutes later to the representative of the New York Herald, and was at once cabled to that journal, where it appeared a few hours subsequently. IN MEMORIAM. Sonnet written in St. Paul's Cathedral after the Funeral Through tears to look upon a tearful crowd At heaven's own gate-it was a sorrowing To make a good man's death seem such a thing Some creeds there be like runes we cannot spell, Nos. clxx.-clxxii. A. MARY F. ROBINSON. There have been few instances of any young writer so rapidly coming into wide and strongly interested notice as that of Miss Mary Robinson. Her first little volume, A Handful of Honeysuckle, was plainly to a large extent derivative, but at the same time it showed so much native sweetness, so much delicacy of touch and occasional strength, that great things began to be prophesied of the young poetess. In due time appeared The Crowned Hippolytus: and other Poems, and Miss Robinson's position was confirmed, the volume exhibiting very marked increase of strength, though not without some markedly tentative efforts. Personally, I do not think this collection of her poetic work has yet been done full justice to. In 1884 was published The New Arcadia, a book that deservedly attracted very considerable attention: though some of Miss Robinson's most discriminating friends doubted the advisability of her attempting the reform of the condition of the agricultural classes by means of poetic special pleading. Alas, there are too many examples of the ruin of poetic and artistic genius through the tendency (so rapidly growing into unconscious or uncontrolled habit) to 'preach.' Miss Robinson has a keen eye for nature, has earnest sympathies and insight, and a very sweet and true lyric voice: if she will but be true to herself, she may yet take a very high place indeed. She has also written Arden: A Romance and an admirable Life of Emily Bronté ("Eminent Women' Series.") The sonnets I have selected are from her second volume of poems. In the New Arcadia there are two fine sonnets entitled Apprehension" which I have pleasure in quoting I. O foolish dream, to hope that such as I Who answer only to thine easiest moods, Should fill my heart, as o'er my heart there broods The perfect fulness of thy memory! Even such to thee am I; but thou to me Even as the sea itself to the storm-tossed rill. Call to the land, and call unanswered still. II. As dreams the fasting nun of Paradise, That soon shall dawn upon her watching eyes, Harshness or death of friends, doubt, slow decay, Madness, all dreads that fill me with decay, And creep about me oft with fell surmise. Yet must I dream: should once the good planks start, Nos. clxxiii.-v. W. CALDWELL ROSCOE (1823-1859). If Mr. W. Caldwell Roscoe had lived a few years longer he would almost certainly have gained, or ensured for himself ultimately, an abiding reputation as a master of the sonnet. The few examples he left behind him, published and unpublished, are mostly very beautiful, one or two quite exceptionally so. (Vide Poems and Essays by the late William Caldwell Roscoe, Edited, with a Prefatory Memoir, by his Brother-in-law, Richard Holt Hutton. 1860.) No. clxxiii. This truly exquisite sonnet, so fine in conception, so lovely in expression, and so pathetic in its significance, has one serious flaw. That a man so cultured, and with so sensitive an ear could be guilty of the barbarism of Apollian is extraordinary. As regards the sixth word of the fifth line, it may be noted that both in the versions of 1851 and 1860 it was printed 'white.' That it was while' in the original is known from the fact that in the proof-sheet there is a marginal correction of it to 'white.' Mr. Main saw this proof-sheet but concluded that the poet had made an unintentional slip. Both Mr. Main and Mr. Cain print 'while,' and this reading I have adopted also. 'White,' undoubtedly narrows the idea. No. clxxiv. This sonnet forms the epilogue to the exceedingly fine tragedy Violenzia (1851), which is far too little known. No. clxxvi. W. STANLEY ROSCOE (1782-1843). From the Poems (1834). W. S. Roscoe, the son of Roscoe the historian, was father of William Caldwell Roscoe. Nos. clxxvii.-clxxxi. CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI. As I have already had occasion to remark, Miss Rossetti ranks foremost among living poetesses. She and she alone could write such magic lyrics as 'Dream-Land.' Her sonnets bear but a small proportion to her lyrical and other poems. Some were written at a very early age; they are all or mostly very sombre, but are as impressive as they are beautiful. I know of no other woman who has written sonnets like "The World," or "Vanity of Vanities." There is a very marked affinity between much of Miss Rossetti's work and that of her brother Gabriel. Nos. clxxxii.-cxciii. DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828-1882). It has taken time for the growth of widespread admiration of the sonnet-work of this most imaginative of all the Victorian poets. There are already not a few, and those by no means blind admirers, who consider him the greatest sonneteer of our language, his sonnets having the, fundamental brain-work of Shakespeare's, the beauty of Mrs. Browning's, the dignity and, occasionally, the sunlit transparency of Wordsworth's, with a greater depth and richness of sound, a more startling and impressive vehemence, a greater voluminousness of urgent music. But I need not repeat what I have already in substance said in the introduction. Even in a limited selection they speak for themselves. No. clxxxii. This sonnet appears in the completed House of Life as 'Soul's Beauty.' It is specially suited to preface any selection of Rossetti's sonnets, from the eminently characteristic lines of its sestet. The picture for which 'Sybilla Palmifera' was written is a very noble design. |